UNEXPLAINED EMOTION

The female of the species is a deep and complicated creature. Our minds work in strange and wonderful ways which, though positively mystifying to men, make complete sense to us. Or at least they do most of the time.

Today I happened to pass by our local senior school as hordes of teenagers came flooding out on to the pavement. They were chatting animatedly, laughing and gesturing at each other with great gusto. I wondered what could have brought them all out when classes would usually still be in full swing. And then it crossed my mind. Their first GCSE. These year 11 students had just been freed from the captivity of the exam hall and were now engaged in the serious business of the post mortem.

And then, from absolutely nowhere and for no discernible reason, I began to cry. Suddenly I felt totally engulfed by some emotion that I couldn't identify. My tears were akin to those of sorrow but I felt no sadness. I was able to control the downpour but I felt that had I not wanted to check them, the tears could have flowed forever.

But why? Why do certain situations cause me to become emotionally inept? My children think it's hilarious. They now know a few of the triggers and cast sidewards glances at me to check that I am maintaining my composure when they arise. Maybe it's just me although I do remember my mum crying when children sang and telling me that her mum always did too. Perhaps it's a genetic thing!

I suspect this morning was a mixture of the innocence and promise of these young people on the cusp of the big world combined with the knowledge that my own children are fast approaching that stage in their lives. And on top of that, a quick tear shed for my own youth when everything was exciting and nothing was impossible.

If I tried to explain what came over me this morning to my husband, he would smile supportively but have little or no comprehension of what I was describing. Crying over a loose collection of thoughts and memories is not something that men seem to do. I have given up attempting to analyse my motives. I just go with the flow, so to speak and wait until it passes. I even enjoy the emotional surge sometimes as long as it hits at a convenient moment.

Perhaps it is a phenomenon peculiar to me alone in which case anyone reading this will be finally convinced that I have lost my grip. But I suspect not. As I say, women are complicated creatures and that is part of our allure.

A PASSION FOR LIFE

It's coming! There's no escaping. The supermarkets are full of related, or not so related merchandise and yesterday I saw my first red and white flag hanging precariously from a car window.

I have to say that I am really not that fussed about football. I can make an acceptable stab at explaining the offside rule and occasionally wow my husband with some piece of trivia but basically that's the end of my footballing knowledge. But I do like the fact that for other people it is more important than life or death (to paraphrase Mr Shankly).

I love the way that whenever there is a major sporting event that we have a real, or even imagined chance of succeeding at, the whole country explodes into a media fuelled fever. We all know that June will be sacrificed to cut price beer, barbecues, unpleasant fashion and, I am sure, ultimate disappointment. And whilst England is winning, everyone will walk around with a spring in their step. People will smile at strangers in the street, united by this sense of national pride. Suddenly everyone has something other than the weather to discuss and, if the gods are kind to us, we will have a mini heatwave to coincide with the competition to make our enjoyment complete.

But whilst I want the England team to fulfill its potential, this is because I like the effect that it has on the country and not from any passion for the sport. In fact I am not passionate about anything. I never have been. of course, I have stuff that interests me or that I might get a bit excited about - but passionate? Never.

But to be passionate about something must be a wonderful thing. To have something that engulfs your life so completely that you would walk over broken glass to get to it. I have friends who are passionate about stuff. Sport is the main category but not just participating, where passion may be confused with endorphins. These people are happy to be passionate from their sofas. They can't remember a time in their life when their passion was not the most important thing in the world. Of this I am slightly envious.

I have wondered over the years why I have never felt this kind of passion. Is this because I have not yet discovered the thing that will light my fire or because passion just isn't in my DNA? As I am constantly turning my hand to new things, I like to hope that the object of my yet to be discovered passion is just behind a door or over the next page, waiting patiently for me to catch up with it. But if I am honest I know full well that the reason I don't do passionate is because I am just not a passionate kind of person. I don't do highs and lows. I am pragmatic to a point of tedium and my brain is far too flighty to spend time on one particular subject. So whilst I would love to develop a passion, I know in my heart of hearts that it just isn't happening.

So I shall watch the football results with interest. I obviously won't watch any actual football. And I shall delight in England's triumphs and mourn its defeats with those around me. But you now know that really I am a bit of a fraud, far more interested in the competition's effects on my countrymen than in the actual results. Just don't tell anyone.

SLEEPOVERS

I think I am going to let my older two children have friends over for sleepovers. I have battled against it womanfully but I suspect the time has come to bow down with dignity and let the whole, dreadful business wash over me.

I haven't always been phobic about sleepovers. Remembering what fun they were in my childhood, I fondly thought ( albeit when my elder two were not yet out of nappies) how delightful it would be to have a houseful of little people scampering about the place in their pyjamas. When the children grew out of their cots I even bought them beds with trundles underneath in full expectation of this eventuality.

But then when they were about the right age to start having friends to stay over, I suddenly had two more toddlers, was on my knees from sheer exhaustion and the thought of unnecessary broken nights made my blood run cold.

I did have a few sleepovers and it started well enough. Controlled sugar consumption, relatively early lights out and plenty of threats meant that they weren't too painful. But then events began to overtake me. Sleepovers, from the stories I heard from other mums, became endurance tests which only the very hardy could survive. No sleep. Too many e numbers. Hugh amounts of mess and hideous children for the following two days became the norm and that was not a game that I was prepared to play.

So I withdrew and banned them. Of course my girls were regularly invited out by parents more brave than me but no one ever came back despite almost constant demands from my indignant children and their deprived friends.

Then recently, a friend with older girls whose opinion I value told me that she gave her house over to sleepovers most weekends because at least it meant that she knew where her children were and what they were doing. This I can understand. I am not quite at the point of parties and cider and boys but it won't be far away.

And things have changed over the years since I said no. We built the kids their own sitting room which is three closed doors away from ours. I generally get complete nights of sleep these days and consequently have a greater tolerance level for late nights. And we now have an en suite bathroom so I don't have to meet unexpected children on the landing in a state of undress.

So when my children get home from school tonight I shall give them the good news. I will allow sleepovers on a trial basis and it will then be up to them if they become a regular event. Over to you girls.

MY STATUS AS A MARTYR

I shouted at my children this morning and threatened to leave home. It's not behavior of which I am particularly proud but such were my levels of exasperation that it just slipped out. As my six year old's chin began to tremble and tears welled up in his wide eyes, I knew that I had overstepped the mark but Saints preserve me! Can no one tidy up in this house except me?

I know that I am tidy to the point of OCD and that my other character flaws, which are many and varied, are enough to drive a Methodist to drink, but that's just the way I am. I like things to be straight. It keeps me calm and when I'm calm the whole house runs smoothly. You would think that my family would be able to see the connection by now but it seems not.

So I storm about the place bellowing about being chained to the house like a slave and having to do everything myself. I get quite carried away with my stomping and complaining. And then, just when I am reaching a terrifying climax, some child pipes up with "Can I help?" And it is at this point that my whole martyr status collapses. Of course they could help. I just won't let them.

The trouble is, when the children help it just means that I have to follow along behind redoing whatever it is they are helping with. I contrast the amount of time that it takes me to do whatever it is with the time it takes me to ask them to do it, nag a few times, instruct them on how the job should be done, wait whilst they complete it, show them why what they have done is not up to the required standard and either repeat stages four and five ad nauseum or just do the job myself.

I already spend a disproportional amount of my time on housework. Involving others just drags it out still further. If I'm not careful my clever delegation of work could result in my never leaving the house at all.

But I can't moan if, when they actually offer to help I spurn them. So far I have tried to delegate basic tidying, hoovering, ironing, cooking and dusting with very patchy results. But I just don't have the time to redo their efforts or the heart to ignore it.

A friend of mine went on strike, refusing to do anything but cook. When I asked about her progress five days later she reported that none of her family had appeared to notice. Dust piled up, washing accumulated in heaps around the house and no one could find anything but they did not question why or make the connection between the changes in the household and my friend sitting on the sofa with a magazine. Which rather begs the question why we do all this housework in the first place?

I can't take the stike path because I simply couldn't bear to watch the deterioration. I will have to continue to single handedly maintain the desired levels of cleanliness and every so often blow a fuse at which point the children will make a half hearted attempt to tidy something and wait until the storm has passed.

THE CONFIDENCE

“I’ve got something to tell you,” she said, purposefully. She paused, biting her lip tentatively. She looked me straight in the eye and then, as if slightly ashamed of her directness, looked down at her coffee which was sitting, half finished, on the table between us.
I wondered with mild curiosity what was coming and I waited for her to speak.
“I’m pregnant,” she said. Then she cast her eyes down again and picked up her coffee, taking a mouthful and swallowing before coiling her fingers around the cup as if to seek comfort from its warmth.
I didn’t speak. I needed a moment to process the information and then to decide how to react. What I thought was immaterial but before I spoke I needed to gauge how she was feeling. As these thoughts motored round my brain, she smiled. Not a half smile that plays around your lips but a full ear to ear grin.
“Isn’t it fantastic?” she said. “Are you pleased for me?”
I relaxed slightly. At least I knew how I was expected to react. I was used to saying the wrong thing, missing the point of a story, failing to recognise carefully crafted signals.
“That’s incredible!” I said, smiling as broadly as I thought would be expected to.
“And I assume from your general manner that this is a good thing?” I tried to keep my tone light, jocular and not give her any indication of the alarm bells that were now sounding unavoidably in my head.
“Well,” she was saying. “I have had a couple of weeks to get used to the idea but, overall, yes. I think it is a good thing.”
“Well then, I’m delighted for you.” I replied, hoping that nothing about my expression would betray my true feelings and the sense of foreboding that was creeping over me.
I stood up and reached across the table to hug her. We didn’t often touch and this, combined with the proximity of the table between us meant that the gesture was more awkward that I had anticipated. After what I hoped was an appropriate time I let go, sat back down and spoke again.
“How has everyone else taken the news? Your parents? Mark?” I could tell instantly that I was the first to know. Whilst part of me felt a childlike pleasure that I had been carefully selected as her confidant over her girlfriends, I knew that it wasn’t really my opinion that she sought. I was a guinea pig, a trial run for the much more difficult confessions to come. She had chosen me because she had anticipated, correctly it seemed, that I could be relied upon to say what she wanted to hear and not to voice the obvious and enormous difficulties that flowed from her predicament. And this made me feel used and unworthy, as if my own thoughts counted for nothing. I
continued to smile.
“Well, good for you!” I said.

CONCENTRATION

Why do I find it so hard to concentrate? Is this something that happens to women of a certain age or is it just me? I just can't seem to do it for more than about 15 minutes at a time without allowing myself to become distracted by something more pressing or interesting or both.

I know exactly when I lost my ability to focus. You need a wide and varied set of life skills to be able to look after young children but keeping your attention on one thing for longer than ten minutes at a time is not one of them. Everything you do is in short, manageable bursts and you are rarely called upon to concentrate on just one thing.

When my life was my own, I had no problem keeping on task. Years of study followed by life at a desk meant that I thought nothing of sitting still for two or three hours at a time and working on the same thing. But now? I can't even sit still for a whole episode of "Lewis" and it's my favourite.

I don't think it's all entirely my fault. Since I sat down to write this I have had seven emails, a text message, someone at the door, the washing machine beeping to tell me that it's finished its cycle and I have checked the time four times to make sure that I'm not late for school. How can I ever hope to concentrate with all that going on?

But I have had focusing skills and lost them. I worry for my children who may never develop them at all. I went upstairs yesterday to check on my eldest. She was sitting at her desk doing her homework. Her ipod was playing something loud (but to be fair I studied with music on too), her phone vibrated constantly with texts and calls and she was listening to Coronation Street on iplayer. If she was allowed I'm sure she would have had facebook or msn going as well. How can she concentrate effectively with all that going on around her? She says she can and her school report seems to confirm this but I can't believe it. I suppose she knows no different. In her short life, communication has always been personal to her and instantaneous, something that I never had to factor into my study time.

However, my powers of concentration, meagre though they are, have been superseded by skills that I have a greater need for. I can tell you where anything that you might need can be found in the house. I know where each of my four children has to be at any given moment, what they need to have with them and how they will get both there and back. I can calculate without opening the fridge how many meals I can conjure up before I need to restock. And I can hold an intelligent conversation with two children at the same time without either feeling like I'm not listening. I have no problem focusing. It's focusing on one thing at a time that's the killer!

So what can I do? I need to concentrate on concentrating. I need to be more disciplined and not allow myself to be distracted by all that is going on around me. I need to work on staying on task without allowing my mind to drift on to what I need to be doing next. I need more coffee. Would you like some?

MY LIFE IN QUARTERS

Tomorrow it will be ten years since I skipped out of the corporate world and began my new life at home. I know I blogged about this last year but I'm afraid I'm a sucker for anniversaries. And things look different this year, as I trust they will with every passing twelve months.

And as I thought about this fact, I realised that my life so far splits neatly into four quarters of eleven years each - well, almost.

I don't remember much about my first quarter. Snatches of home life, glimpses of holidays on the English coast. Most of my memories are informed by moving house which we did when I was nine. Things are either before the move or after it. It is a successful way of capturing moments and placing them in context.

My second quarter, secondary school, university and law school, is less hazy. I loved school - and there were four of them to choose from. It was all about learning, giggling and dreaming of things to come. University was a necessity, a means to an end and Law school was sheer hard work. All of them ultimately enjoyable in the main. And in this quarter I think my character was formed, my likes and dislikes crystallised and the direction of the rest of my life determined.

Quarter number three was my corporate existence. Eleven years spent learning my trade and ricocheting between tremendous bouts of confidence and self importance and absolute blind terror.

And then my most recent past. Sleep deprivation, nappies, competitive parenting, sapping of self confidence and utter boredom. It doesn't sound great does it? Well, such is the harsh realities of four children in seven years. There were obviously bright moments and fantastic memories but overall it was one almighty slog.

So, although the maths doesn't quite work I am now entering the next section, the fifth fifth as it were. It is almost as if I am back to where I started. I am oh so eager to learn new things. I am excited about everything I do. I am thoroughly enjoying my children at their current ages. And I am happy in my own skin. I no longer feel the need to try and do the things just because I ought to or because it's expected. People have to take me as they find me and if that fits in with their expectations then that's great.

Someone said to me recently that I was just as they had remembered me being in my twenties but whereas what appeared to be a front then was real now. Perhaps they're right.

And as this anniversary comes and goes would I change anything? Absolutely not. Eleven years as a corporate lawyer was just right. Almost eleven years as a stay at home mum was also right, although it was nearly the death of me. And now I can't help but wonder, what will the next eleven bring?